Saturday, June 30, 2007

Baby talk

Here are some words that need to be documented:

Payton:
Lemme shosha = let me show you, pronounced lemmee show-shuh
Jean bug= June bug
Pish= fish
Messa= Vanessa
Teethbrush= toothbrush
Belwee= Bentley, pronounced with a very soft l
TB= TV
Cool Javi= Uncle Javi
Srreal= cereal, pronounced like cereal without the first e
Apple-ox= applesauce

Sabrina:
The next dark outside= tomorrow night
Junior bug= June bug
Belly= Bentley

Vanessa (when she was little):
Schoo-you'll= school
Tress= dress
Leezy= Lizzy

Camri (when she was little):
Spin the night= spend the night
Tin-tones= Flintstones
Aminal= animal
Da-yee= daddy
Footfriends= footprints
Soft me= gently tickle me

Friday, June 29, 2007

Rash!

I have acquired some kind of rash on my face, lucky me! It started last Saturday morning, very subtle. By Monday, it was very obvious. These little bumps all over the bottom and top of my mouth, outside, not in. By Wednesday, it was around the outside of my left eye and on its pathetic way behind both of my ears. What the heck? Uncomfortable! Besides being annoying, it only bothers me when it itches. I can't scratch it because it stings when I do. I don't look like the Elephant Man or anything, except that I LOVE MAKEUP and can't wear any :( Last night I couldn't sleep and went to bed around 1. Around 1:30 I got up and went to bed again around 3. I don't know when I actually fell asleep, but thankfully Mr.P woke me up around 9:15 and I was able to make it to my appointment at 9:45. Apparently I had an allergic reaction to nothing that we can ever pinpoint...so that's great. Anyway, I'm on some kind of medicine now that I have to take lots of during the first few days and then it tapers down. I'm writing about this so you will pity me. PITY ME!
Here's the sweet part. Around 2 today, I got really tired and called Vanessa and Camri to the kitchen where Mr.P and Sabrina were keeping me busy. I asked them if they would keep the babies busy for an hour while I took a nap. Without thinking twice, they both agreed and Vanessa took charge by asking the babies if they wanted to watch a movie in their rooms. She got their movies going (2 separate ones, of course) while Camri asked if I wanted her to wake me up by a certain time. Yes, in one hour please. Oh my bed never looked so good! I woke up to Camri's cool hand on my hand and a quiet house. Sabrina was still watching a movie and Mr. had fallen asleep. My babies, Camri and Vanessa, are the best!

Sunday, June 10, 2007

Fish

It seems like everyone is referring to their kids as fish these days. Last week I took the kids to the pool out north and I think we're going to try to make it there once a week now. Our neighbor, John, also is very generous with his pool. He opens it to the neighbors a few evenings out of the week and normally on the weekends if he's in town. Camri's always been a good little swimmer and is keeping it up. Vanessa has her mind set on learning how to dive. She hasn't quite learned to jump along with all of the other stuff (head down, arms out, toes on edge, blah blah blah), but I'm sure she'll do it perfectly by the end of the summer. Sabrina, who wouldn't get off of the steps last year, now walks around in water that comes just under her chin. She's become quite good at paddling around and retrieving things from the bottom too. She's always impressed with herself when she touches the floor of the pool. Mr.P insisted on being carried around up until a couple of weeks ago and now will jump in to any area (including the deep end) of the pool and paddle around with no problem. This is with a life vest on, of course. I don't think he realizes that it's the life vest that's allowing him to float which scares me a little when I think of him maybe jumping into water without one. He loves it though. One of the neighbors thinks he looks like a little otter. My goal for them is to jump off of the diving board by the end of the summer. It's still too scary for them right now. Snapshots are coming!

Thursday, June 7, 2007

Last day!

It's our last day of school!!






I'm a 7th grader!!



I'm a 4th grader!!

Coconut milk

We're liking this kind of coconut milk!

Coconut

During my last post, I went off on a tangent about cleaning when all I really wanted to do was explain why we were eating on the kitchen floor. Did you notice the vacuum in the background? I even had to change the title of the post from "Coconut" to "Cleaning." Hmmm...I didn't realize I had so much to write about that.

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago Sabrina was at the mall with me and she noticed a coconut in the window of Bath&Body. She informed Mr.P and I that it was a coconut and then thought better about it and told us that it was not because "coconuts don't have hair on them." I told her that they do and that she was right the first time, it is a coconut. She thought about that for a second, then let me know that coconuts have milk inside of them. On the way home we had to stop at Dillons, so guess what we bought. I wanted the kids to try it. When I was little, I remember my dad would bring home different fruits once in a while and it was always a treat. Coconuts and pomegranates were always my favorites. I remember us kids often trying to trick my mom into drinking the milk by telling her it was water. Now that I'm older it makes me laugh to think about it. The milk actually looks like dirty water and always has floaties in it from the shell, not to mention that it smells like coconut. Who the heck would think that was water? lol THEN, we'd always want him to try his best to crack it open perfectly down the middle so that we could drink out of the two halves like they did on Gilligan's Island. Okay, so anyway it winds up being just Mr. and Sabrina because Vanessa and Camri are spending the night at friend's houses. As soon as we're done with dinner, Sabrina runs for the coconut and asks Daddy to open it. He drills holes through the eyes and pours the milk into a bowl. She looks at it skeptically as I'm urging her to taste it. She was probably expecting cow's milk, as any 4 year old would. She tastes it anyway and is thoroughly disgusted. Mr.P sees this and won't come near the stuff. I don't blame her, I don't like it either. Onto the next quest...cracking the shell! We huddle around Jeremy and Sabrina directs him to open it right down the middle. I noticed when I bought it that they sell them with divets down the middle so that it cracks open easier, I guess. He gets it open and the meat is nice and smooth white inside. I have a butterknife trying to pry the first piece out and finally some comes loose. The kids are not impressed. What? How can this be? I loved this stuff when I was little! Both of them give me an "I don't like it" face when they taste it and Payton actually spit his half-chewed piece in the trash. What they do like, however, is watching me struggle to get each piece out. I pry the knife under a tiny edge of the meat and a piece will go flying across the room when it comes loose. They scream and laugh and run to get it. It gets plopped in the bowl and they're ready for more. I don't remember my dad making this kind of mess when I was little. Hmmm... Finally every piece is out and the shells are empty. I still have this need in me to put liquid in them and use them for drinking, so I filled them with milk. I gave the one with the holes to Sabrina and showed her how to plug them with her little fingers while she drank. I wound up eating most of the coconut which didn't taste as sweet as I think it should have. Maybe I'll buy another one midsummer and see if it's better. As for the shells, they've become bath toys.

Cleaning

I often (every week or two) get the notion to scrub the wood floors down. "Just do it with a mop or use the Swiffer, " Jeremy used to tell me. I never did and he grew tired of rolling his eyes, so he never brings it up anymore. I don't know...I just don't think anything can clean the floor as well as I do when I'm down there scrubbing it myself. So the thing is, is that this is a process. I have to have everything taken out of the room that I'm doing and if I start somewhat late in the day (meaning around 2 or after), then the furniture probably isn't going to be back to normal until the next day or maybe even the day after that depending how busy (or lazy) I get. I forgot to mention that I'm also a floater when it comes to cleaning. If it's a small job then I get the whole thing done, but if it's something big and there are lots of other things to do, then I do a little of this and jump to something else. Example: I may move all of the furniture out of the kitchen and get out the vacuum. Aha, didn't I tell myself that I would dust the cabinets today? So I start doing that but when I get to around the sink I notice that I would have more room to step (because I have to walk on the counters to get the high cabinets) if the dishes from the night before are out of the way. I do the dishes (this is one of the things I get completely done with). As I'm finishing them up, I hear the buzz of the dryer. Good, I was waiting for that. I get the clothes out of the dryer and put more in the washer. Now I have to fold the ones out of the dryer because I hate if they sit in the basket and get wrinkled. Laundry for a family of six is a daily task. If you go a couple of days without doing it, watch out! Okay, well the sink is empty, so I may as well fill the bucket for the floor job. Wait, I need to vacuum still... And so on and so forth. As this goes on, I'm normally taking care of things like, "I'm hungry!" or "Mr.P called me a baby brat!!" or "Can Abigale and Amelia come in and play?" etc. So if you ever come through the door and things look sort of half done, now you know why. There IS a method to my madness :)